Where to Go If You Don’t Have a PCP
If you are an adult who does everything that you should do and when you should do it, then no doubt you have a therapist on your phone contact list. You have met this person, seen him during treatment visits, and he has all your medical records, so you can call him and get prescriptions and advice at any time.
This article is for all of us.
If you don’t have a primary care physician, you can still get the care you need if you know where to look. Here are your options and what each is for.
Your insurance company’s helpline
It depends on your plan, but many insurance companies have phone numbers or services that will put you in touch with the nurse for simple questions. For example, Blue Cross Blue Shield notes that they can answer questions about symptoms, medications, and home treatments, and can also help you figure out when you really need to go for a visit. The nursing lines of other providers are similar and are usually available 24 hours a day.
Visit video
If you don’t need a hands-on inspection, video visits are a convenient way to get advice and recipes from the comfort of your bed. They are ideal for mild coughs and colds, allergies, urinary tract infections and allergies. In each of these cases, the symptoms are obvious, your symptom history tells most of the story, and the treatment is likely to be the medication they cause (such as antibiotics or allergy medications), or just advice on how to get over your symptoms. …
Pharmacy
Besides prescriptions, pharmacists can help with some other common health-related tasks. Of course, they can answer questions about medications (even over-the-counter).
You can also get routine vaccinations at many pharmacies. Not only the flu shot (you do this every year, right?), But other common vaccines such as chickenpox, tetanus, and whooping cough.
For some drugs in some states, pharmacists can prescribe prescription drugs even if you don’t have a doctor’s prescription. (Legal details vary, but often they have a standing order from the doctor to dispense the drug to people who meet certain criteria.) In this way, contraception and naloxone can be prescribed to prevent opioid overdose .
Mail delivery services
For medications that you just need but your doctor has to prescribe, look for services like Nurx and Lemonaid. This is especially useful if you have no dosage left of the contraceptive, but you do not need to get tested.
Urgent care
If you need to see your doctor in person, look for an emergency room. They are designed to treat minor illnesses and injuries when you are not in an emergency , you just need to get checked out as soon as possible. You will usually get faster and cheaper help here than if you went to the emergency room.
There are chains of stand-alone emergency medical services such as MedExpress, but you may prefer emergency care related to hospital or doctor’s offices. They are often better able to put you in touch with other agencies or service providers – sometimes you can draw blood in the hallway instead of going to another laboratory, and they can put you in touch with your doctor for follow-up.
Specialists
You don’t always need to see your primary care doctor to get to a specialist, although you should check with your insurance company to be sure. (Some plans require you to have a PCP and have that person write directions before you go anywhere.)
If you know exactly what kind of special help you need and your insurance allows it, you can contact that person right away. If you are pregnant, go directly to your gynecologist, for example. In large healthcare systems, you can also call the appropriate number in your local healthcare system and ask to make an appointment with the specialist you want (for example, ask an “allergist”) to help you figure it out. who is in stock.